Everything is Interesting
A soundwalk is a walk with a focus on listening to the environment. The term was first used by members of the World Soundscape Project under the leadership of composer R. Murray Schafer in Vancouver in the 1970s.
Hildegard Westerkamp, from the same group of artists, defines soundwalking as ‘… any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter where we are.’ Continue reading
DJing is the act of playing existing recorded music for a live audience. The modern DJ’s role as a performer who creates a seamless and extended mix of music for a dance party or club atmosphere evolved from radio personalities who introduced and played individual selections of recorded music on broadcast radio stations.
In 1935, American radio commentator Walter Winchell coined the term ‘disc jockey’ (the combination of disc, referring to disc-shaped phonograph records, and jockey, which is an operator of a machine) to describe radio announcer Martin Block, the first radio announcer to gain widespread fame for playing popular recorded music over the air. Continue reading
An all-you-can-eat restaurant (AYCE) is a type of restaurant in which a fixed price is charged for entry, after which diners may consume as much food as they wish. All-you-can-eat establishments are frequently buffets.
The all-you-can-eat buffet has been ascribed to Herbert ‘Herb’ Cobb McDonald, a Las Vegas publicity and entertainment manager who introduced the idea in 1946. Continue reading
Saturn’s hexagon is a persisting hexagonal cloud pattern around the north pole of Saturn. The sides of the hexagon are about 9,000 miles long, which is more than the diameter of Earth. The hexagon is about 18,000 miles wide, may be 190 miles high, and may be a jet stream made of atmospheric gases moving at 200 mph.
It rotates with a period of 10h 39m 24s, the same period as Saturn’s radio emissions from its interior. The hexagon does not shift in longitude like other clouds in the visible atmosphere. Continue reading
Stand-up comedy is a comic style in which a comedian performs in front of a live audience, usually speaking directly to them. The performer is commonly known as a comic, stand-up comic, comedian, comedienne, stand-up comedian, or simply a stand-up.
Comedians give the illusion that they are dialoguing, but in actuality, they are monologuing a grouping of humorous stories, jokes and one-liners, typically called a ‘shtick,’ ‘routine,’ ‘act,’ or ‘set.’ Some stand-up comedians use props, music, or magic tricks to enhance their acts. Stand-up comedy is stated to be the ‘freest form of comedy writing’ that is regarded as a fictionalized ‘extension of’ the person performing. Continue reading
Fuck, Marry, Kill is a social forced choice question and answer game in which one person poses three names of people known to the other, either of people known in their personal lives or of celebrities, and the other person then has to decide which of the three they would like to have sex with it, which one they would marry, and which one they would kill.
A 2009 ‘Wonkette’ piece suggested that the rules of the game included an understanding that the player can not have sex with the person they marry, and that the person they do choose to have sex with, they can only have sex with one time. The game has existed for decades, and has found its way into popular culture.
NOBUS (‘nobody but us’) are security vulnerabilities which the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) believes that only it can exploit.
As such, the agency sometimes chooses to leave such vulnerabilities open, in order to exploit them against NSA’s targets. More broadly, it refers to the notion that some signals intelligence capabilities are so powerful or otherwise inaccessible that only the NSA will be able to deploy them, though recent analyses suggest that this advantage may be under stress. Continue reading
Revolution 9 is a sound collage that appeared on the Beatles’ 1968 eponymous release (popularly known as the ‘White Album’). The composition, credited to Lennon–McCartney, was created primarily by John Lennon with assistance from George Harrison and Yoko Ono. Lennon said he was trying to paint a picture of a revolution using sound. The composition was influenced by the avant garde style of Ono as well as the musique concrète works of composers such as Edgard Varèse and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
British music critic Ian MacDonald remarked that ‘Revolution 9’ evoked the era’s revolutionary disruptions and their repercussions, and thus was culturally ‘one of the most significant acts the Beatles ever perpetrated,’ as well as ‘the world’s most widely distributed avant garde artifact.’ Continue reading
Capitol Hill’s mystery soda machine was a vending machine in Capitol Hill, Seattle, that had been in operation since at least the late 1990s. It is unknown who stocked the machine. In 2018, the machine disappeared and a message was posted to its Facebook page stating ‘Going for a walk, need to find myself. Maybe take a shower even.’
A drink could be chosen using one of the ‘? mystery ?’ buttons and the dispensed drinks were rare cans, such as those not ordinarily available in the US or that have not been in circulation since the 1980s. Examples included Mountain Dew White Out, raspberry-flavored Nestea Brisk, Hawaiian Punch, and Grape Fanta. The locksmith, in front of whose business the machine stood, claims to have no knowledge of who operated it.
Mushroom management also known as ‘Pseudo-Analysis’ or ‘Blind Development,’ is the running of a company where the communication channels between the managers and the employees do not work traditionally. The term alludes to the stereotypical (and somewhat inaccurate) view of mushroom cultivation: kept in the dark and fed bullshit.
Mushroom management is a style of management in which the personnel are not familiar with the ideas or the general state of the company, and are given work without knowing the purpose of this work, in contrast with open-book management. Mushroom management means that workers’ curiosity and self-expression are not supported. Continue reading
In discussion of science fiction, a Big Dumb Object (BDO) is any mysterious object, usually of extraterrestrial or unknown origin and immense power, in a story which generates an intense sense of wonder by its mere existence. To a certain extent, the term deliberately deflates this.
The term’s coinage is attributed to book reviewer Roz Kaveney, but it was popularized by its tongue-in-cheek inclusion in ‘The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction’ by Peter Nicholls in 1993. Continue reading
OK Boomer is a catchphrase and internet meme that gained popularity among younger cohorts throughout 2019, used to dismiss or mock attitudes stereotypically attributed to the baby boomer generation. The phrase first drew widespread attention in a 2019 TikTok video in response to an older man, though the phrase was coined years before that. It is considered by some to be ageist.
The phrase is a pejorative retort used to dismiss or mock perceived narrow-minded, outdated, negatively-judgemental, or condescending attitudes of older people, particularly baby boomers. The term has been used as a retort for perceived resistance to technological change, climate change denial, marginalization of minorities or opposition to younger generations’ ideals. Continue reading
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